Give and Take (A Harry Potter Fanfiction)

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

September 26th ,1995

"How was your day?"

Evy was in the great hall for dinner on a Friday night. She was so glad that there was lax homework from most of her teachers. The only professor intent on giving her a ton of homework was Professor Umbridge. She was quite a peculiar teacher. But not peculiar like Professor Trelawney, who taught Divinations, with her bug eyes and strange shawls, the toad-like woman was strange in the sense she wouldn't let the class perform spells. She was intent on learning defense by reading the textbook. In Evy's opinion, that was an ineffective method of teaching. How could they know how to truly cast defensive spells if they never try? Learning the theory wouldn't be enough if a war was coming. Evy knew well that casting a spell was much more than just speaking the words, one had to feel the magic and make slight adjustments to get the desired outcome. 

"It was fine, I'm so sick of professor Umbridge. What's her deal with the textbook anyways?"

Katie looked just as tired as Evy felt, "I don't know. She seems afraid of magic like she isn't even a real witch, she's just faking or something. I doubt she's doing all o this just because she feels like it though."

"Yeah, but t what's the real reason she's like this? I know it's not for safety. We're supposed to learn by doing. D'you think that the ministry has anything to do with this?"

"Dunno, but that would make the most sense to me. I mean, she's probably here on ministry orders. To keep an eye on Hogwarts and all."

Evy had to bet that that was right. Why else would a woman like her come to Hogwarts to teach a subject she clearly had no interest in? 

"Who do you think thought of sending her here?" Katie asked.

"Probably the Prime Minister. Or someone in the department that deal with whatever is happening in the world today," Evy paused, "God, why did Cedric have to go and die?! Life would've been a lot easier without him getting himself killed like an idiot."

"Y'know it wasn't his fault, right?" Katie said, looking slightly concerned, her brow furrowing. 

"I know, but still...It's so... I dunno," Evy gave up. She felt bad for saying that. She knew better than to say something like that. "It was his fault he entered into that tournament and stuff so... I know it wasn't his fault for dying. That was Crouch's son's fault. Wonder why he became a Death Eater..."

"I think he might have had a bad life or something, so he went off with the wrong sort to feel better about it. I don't know, I've got no problems with life."

"I guess so. But enough about that, what are we going to do about the Umbridge crisis? Because, we have to learn some defense if we plan to survive this war. Learning spells out of a textbook isn't enough."

"You're right, but what's a group of teenagers going to do about it?" Katie gave Evy an indiscernible look. Something between curiosity, hesitance and questioning.

"I don't know yet. But we have to do something. Something is always better than nothing."

"We'll we can't try to tell her she's wrong, she'll get mad about that. And we can't disobey her right to her face, because then we'll get in trouble. We have to do something in secret. Something only a few kids who want to learn defense the right way will know about. We have to somehow find a teacher who will be able to help us, and that won't sell us out."

"Who's gonna be able to do that?" Evy asked.

"I don't know yet. But the first thing we have to do is figure out how on earth we're going to get away with this. We need a good plan if we are going to convince someone to teach a group of students behind that bitch's back."